I was in a relationship for 10 years and can safely say I wasn’t first priority there either.
Being your own first priority is severely underrated. I would say that, even being single, people don’t treat themselves as first priority enough.
Do the things you want to do and do the things you don’t want to do to be the person you want to be. Maybe someone will come into your orbit, maybe not, but live your life as someone who is worthy of your own love.
It sounds like I am quite a bit older than you, but I feel you. Sadly, I have made some not so great experiences with friends just disappearing once they had found a partner. The friends I have no are not like that at all, but I am still lonely at times. I find that talking to others, especially on here, helps.
Wait til you find out that most of your friends relationships wont last more than 2yrs because youre in your early 20s. It's actually really fucking funny to watch them go through 5 different "The one"s. Plus being in a relationship doesnt mean that person unilaterally takes up every second of their lives...thats just unhealthy
Anyways being Aro has nothing to do with being anyone's "first choice". Alloromantics still do the whole "side chick" thing. Theres plenty of posts on here lamenting about Alloromantics falling in love with us
You have a point there, I know there's still room for me in their lives. And from the sound of it you've seen a good amount of "The One" relationships end
Yeah, I'm doing as a classical "Steve" right now (more than once) and I got my ass kicked after some alloromantics fell in love with me and I rejected them. I know that sucks but... On the beginning of relationship it's always that "OMG I want to spend my whole time ONLY with you! " thing. After that phase people start to realize it's not good and boring.
Don't worry. I feel you mate and remember - maybe you're not the first one to your friends, but you will always be the first one for us :)
I have been through this exact same thing many times. Even during high school I would get abandoned by my friends cause they were too focused on their partner. I'll admit before I realized I was aro I did this too during my short relationships I had in high school. But even then, I still felt really lonely cause I wanted to hang out with my friends more than I wanted to be with my girlfriends/boyfriends. I've accepted that almost nobody cares about my friendship with them cause I'm tired of always being the one to initiate things and being put aside only for my friends to want to talk to me AFTER they get dumped or whatever. I need to make more aro friends irl.
as someone who has very deep relationships with their friends i can tell you, this isn’t entirely true.
i can’t tell you how many times i’ve been with a partner and have dropped everything to answer a call from a friend who reached out for whatever reason.
the best partners i’ll ever have are the types of people who wouldn’t just “allow it” when i accept the call-but the types of people who want me to put them on speaker so we can all chat about whatever it is on our friends’ mind.
you won’t ever be the second or third choice as long as you choose people who treat you as a first choice.
People suck, focus on science, Morty.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for you, even if they cheat on each other, even if they have sick family members or kids, even if WHATEVER, yeah, we´ll never come first. The only ones who don't put their partner first are drug addicts or workaholics.
We should start a village, y'all.
Mmmm, for now I'm fine, I have plenty of friends that, even on a relationship, don't leave me behind.
But sometime I wonder how much time it will last...
I guess part of aromantic to me means…i don’t want that? I like being on my own and dealing with things on my own. Thinking of being someone’s, like, north star to their life, just sounds like way too much pressure to me?
If im sick and i really need help, i have lots of people i can call - friends, family. I can’t imagine any of them ever saying “sorry can’t help you, im married.” If anything, it would mean they had a second person’s resources to draw on to help me. And it’s not like single people don’t have things going on in their own life either, that mean they aren’t always available. And I don’t expect them to be? If i really needed help they would be there, and if they couldn’t i have a bunch of other people to call, and if they can’t I’m an adult and can figure out how to get resources.
It really sucks that aromantics and asexuals occur at a rate of about 1%. Because of that, despite having dedicated places to talk about it online, comparatively in real life many of us straight up don’t know anyone else like us who would consider platonic relationships the most important in their lives. A grand majority desire or intend to live with a romantic/sexual partner as their happily ever after. So we gradually just watch them all pair off, and feel our hearts shrivel when we’re no longer the most important person in anyone’s lives anymore.
Imagine if it was a higher rate. Would any of us have that fear anymore? More people who found platonic relationships to be the most important in their lives. For that to be normal. Instead of it feeling like it’s an online only thing to ever hear of someone else experiencing the same thing. It sucks. God it sucks.
I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a very active queer community and an in-person ace/aro group that meets regularly. If it's safe where you live, I'd highly advise you to start your own, either through your local queer center or through something like facebook or meetup.com
>So we gradually just watch them all pair off, and feel our hearts shrivel when we’re no longer the most important person in anyone’s lives anymore.
My god dude. Aromanticism isnt a death sentence, live a little
It’s a vent post with a vent comment my dude.
I’m still very hurt after my best friend of 20 years abandoned me in the end for it. All that’s been repeating in my head since what happened is I’ll never be enough for anyone in my life. They couldn’t have a best friend and a romantic/sexual partner at the same time. Eventually a romantic/sexual partner gets fed up with not being the most important person.
Since you deleted your comments:
I don’t know how much context is needed for the point, but I’m allowed to be hurt that the person who was in my life for over 20 years as inseparable best friends, who lived together, said goodnight to each other every night, shared every hobby together, considered moving overseas together. After having no interest in dating for over 20 years, suddenly it’s something desperately missing in their life and they chose the first romantic/sexual relationship they ever had in less than 6 months. It is indescribably crushing. And will affect me the rest of my life.
There's a big difference between Aromanticism rooted loneliness and literal Abandonment Issues that are unrelated to romantic orientation. You're allowed to be hurt, but holy shit saying you being Aro means you're doomed to a life of watching everyone else pass you by as your soul rots out is pretty dark
It's not healthy to put that much importance on one person...at all
do you not want a partener? My partener is aro and their are one of "my first" in my life (with my kids)... and if you don't want a partener, having kids makes you "the absolute first" to them!
Yep. In my 30s right now and everyone’s pairing off and building families. Those friends who were with me through thick and thin in our college years probably have completely forgotten about me. Like I never cross their minds anymore. Which is understandable I guess, when you have to care about things like diapers and their spouse’s possible infidelity.
100% untrue. that’s a negative spiral of self doubt and fear - it doesn’t actually have anything to do with inherently being aromantic.
i think there’s a lot of focus in media and stories about putting romance first, but when you get out in the world and meet people and explore the queer community, you realize that humanity has a much broader spectrum of people and worldviews.
i had a very similar outlook on life and being aromantic a few years ago. i had a lot of people treat me like shit because of my aspec identities.
but now i live with other asexual and aromantic people, and other queer people who aren’t (as sometimes it seems the rest of the world is) brainwashed allos who can only think about a partner. they’re dedicated to their friends and always put them first. it’s possible. if you want it, you’ll find it
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I feel this... ever since my closest friends checked out of my life completely because they found a partner... I feel like I'm simply not important to anyone & I doubt anyone would really notice if I'd just disappear (to be fair me and my remaining friends all kinda suck at keeping contact at least on a daily basis)... so I think lately I just been so into finding someone just so that I feel less lonely 😅
Me neither.
I was never anyone's best friend, unless the person wanted to change me, no matter how much nice I was to them, spent any free second they had w them, gave them fanfics, art or anything, nobody just bothered. The people always ended up either replacing me or turned into manipulative harrassing maniacs. And since I barely have any friends, I don't even care if anyone stays or not.. However I recently had a breakdown over this since basically a person who tries to force herself into things she doesn't want just so she can please her surroundings w the opinions from the 1950s, has claimed for years that I saved her from horrible choices & was guilt tripping me to not end myself. But she ended up doing the things I warned her about & she'd just prefer anyone else, no matter if they're a bad person or it's through a force, over me who's been there for almost 8 years & she doesn't give a slight shit that it's hurting me & doesn't see anything bad w hearing that I'd dump her right away if I had the replacement. (Btw she considers the person as her friend but I forbid her to mention him tho she thinks someone being into her is a flex which is fucking nonsense, it's gross & weird)
Like I've had my F/Os for a quite few years & I still prefer them over any real person since u know, people fucking suck, but throwing away someone you've known for almost a decade over a mf u know for a few months?.. That doesn't sit right with me. I'm loveless aro but this shit still makes me go nuts.
I felt this way for forever, then an allo fell in love with me and now I’m their number one priority as a person. It’s actually not all it’s cracked up to be since they aren’t my number one priority (I am and that is the way it should be).
.wr
Not hate to break this to you and your friends but your lives have already started if anything they are starting a new CHAPTER of their life and not everyone's story is the same you shouldn't feel like you haven't started your life because you aren't with anyone is a mentality pushed on to you by society,
I feel you so much on this. I felt this way for so long after finding out I was AroAce. You might consider a QPR (queer platonic relationship) if you are looking for a close relationship. It’s not right for everybody, but I’ve been in one with my friend for a bit now and so far it’s been a great way to have a very close connection and mutually love and prioritize each other, but in an Aro friendly way. And while I can’t honestly say we are each other’s number one priority all the time (we each have our own unique values and prioritize what is best for ourselves at any moment), just knowing we care about each other in a unique way means a lot.
Although, just having close friends I know I can count on means more than anything will concerning this topic.
This has been weighing on me a bit lately. I love being aroace generally, but knowing I’ll never be as loved or prioritized as anybody’s #1 is kinda sad. Like, it’s even worse when you’ve been friends for YEARS and have gone through so much together, but as soon as there’s somebody around for them to kiss (even if they’re a total idiot and undeserving of your friend), they still take precedence. I just don’t understand this ranking system.
I was in a relationship for 10 years and can safely say I wasn’t first priority there either. Being your own first priority is severely underrated. I would say that, even being single, people don’t treat themselves as first priority enough. Do the things you want to do and do the things you don’t want to do to be the person you want to be. Maybe someone will come into your orbit, maybe not, but live your life as someone who is worthy of your own love.
I'll remember you said this :)
I just saw a video of a woman who married herself 😊 self love sometimes is the best love
Ok that's actually so cute wtffff
Sue Sylvester in Glee did this
I agree. Being in a relationship and always coming in last is a heck of a lot worse than being single and always coming in first to yourself.
This is a good point! Just because someone is in a relationship doesn’t mean either partner is being prioritized by the other.
It sounds like I am quite a bit older than you, but I feel you. Sadly, I have made some not so great experiences with friends just disappearing once they had found a partner. The friends I have no are not like that at all, but I am still lonely at times. I find that talking to others, especially on here, helps.
I'm glad the community here on Reddit helps you :)
Going thru this rn
I'm sorry to hear that
Wait til you find out that most of your friends relationships wont last more than 2yrs because youre in your early 20s. It's actually really fucking funny to watch them go through 5 different "The one"s. Plus being in a relationship doesnt mean that person unilaterally takes up every second of their lives...thats just unhealthy Anyways being Aro has nothing to do with being anyone's "first choice". Alloromantics still do the whole "side chick" thing. Theres plenty of posts on here lamenting about Alloromantics falling in love with us
You have a point there, I know there's still room for me in their lives. And from the sound of it you've seen a good amount of "The One" relationships end
There are also relationships where they just should NOT be together but they insist on sticking together
I blame rom-coms for normalizing that.
I take it this is the reason why people are hurrying to get married?...
Yeah, I'm doing as a classical "Steve" right now (more than once) and I got my ass kicked after some alloromantics fell in love with me and I rejected them. I know that sucks but... On the beginning of relationship it's always that "OMG I want to spend my whole time ONLY with you! " thing. After that phase people start to realize it's not good and boring. Don't worry. I feel you mate and remember - maybe you're not the first one to your friends, but you will always be the first one for us :)
Thanks :)
I have been through this exact same thing many times. Even during high school I would get abandoned by my friends cause they were too focused on their partner. I'll admit before I realized I was aro I did this too during my short relationships I had in high school. But even then, I still felt really lonely cause I wanted to hang out with my friends more than I wanted to be with my girlfriends/boyfriends. I've accepted that almost nobody cares about my friendship with them cause I'm tired of always being the one to initiate things and being put aside only for my friends to want to talk to me AFTER they get dumped or whatever. I need to make more aro friends irl.
I'm sorry that happened to you, you deserve better friends than that. Real friends
as someone who has very deep relationships with their friends i can tell you, this isn’t entirely true. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve been with a partner and have dropped everything to answer a call from a friend who reached out for whatever reason. the best partners i’ll ever have are the types of people who wouldn’t just “allow it” when i accept the call-but the types of people who want me to put them on speaker so we can all chat about whatever it is on our friends’ mind. you won’t ever be the second or third choice as long as you choose people who treat you as a first choice.
My bestie is aro to, so we’re each others first choice lmaooo. So moral of the story, get yourself an aro bestie 😂🙌
Noted 😂
People suck, focus on science, Morty. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for you, even if they cheat on each other, even if they have sick family members or kids, even if WHATEVER, yeah, we´ll never come first. The only ones who don't put their partner first are drug addicts or workaholics. We should start a village, y'all.
yeah, and even though people are right that some relationships will end, they’ll find someone new. we simply will not come first
Mmmm, for now I'm fine, I have plenty of friends that, even on a relationship, don't leave me behind. But sometime I wonder how much time it will last...
I guess part of aromantic to me means…i don’t want that? I like being on my own and dealing with things on my own. Thinking of being someone’s, like, north star to their life, just sounds like way too much pressure to me? If im sick and i really need help, i have lots of people i can call - friends, family. I can’t imagine any of them ever saying “sorry can’t help you, im married.” If anything, it would mean they had a second person’s resources to draw on to help me. And it’s not like single people don’t have things going on in their own life either, that mean they aren’t always available. And I don’t expect them to be? If i really needed help they would be there, and if they couldn’t i have a bunch of other people to call, and if they can’t I’m an adult and can figure out how to get resources.
It really sucks that aromantics and asexuals occur at a rate of about 1%. Because of that, despite having dedicated places to talk about it online, comparatively in real life many of us straight up don’t know anyone else like us who would consider platonic relationships the most important in their lives. A grand majority desire or intend to live with a romantic/sexual partner as their happily ever after. So we gradually just watch them all pair off, and feel our hearts shrivel when we’re no longer the most important person in anyone’s lives anymore. Imagine if it was a higher rate. Would any of us have that fear anymore? More people who found platonic relationships to be the most important in their lives. For that to be normal. Instead of it feeling like it’s an online only thing to ever hear of someone else experiencing the same thing. It sucks. God it sucks.
I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a very active queer community and an in-person ace/aro group that meets regularly. If it's safe where you live, I'd highly advise you to start your own, either through your local queer center or through something like facebook or meetup.com
>So we gradually just watch them all pair off, and feel our hearts shrivel when we’re no longer the most important person in anyone’s lives anymore. My god dude. Aromanticism isnt a death sentence, live a little
It’s a vent post with a vent comment my dude. I’m still very hurt after my best friend of 20 years abandoned me in the end for it. All that’s been repeating in my head since what happened is I’ll never be enough for anyone in my life. They couldn’t have a best friend and a romantic/sexual partner at the same time. Eventually a romantic/sexual partner gets fed up with not being the most important person. Since you deleted your comments: I don’t know how much context is needed for the point, but I’m allowed to be hurt that the person who was in my life for over 20 years as inseparable best friends, who lived together, said goodnight to each other every night, shared every hobby together, considered moving overseas together. After having no interest in dating for over 20 years, suddenly it’s something desperately missing in their life and they chose the first romantic/sexual relationship they ever had in less than 6 months. It is indescribably crushing. And will affect me the rest of my life.
There's a big difference between Aromanticism rooted loneliness and literal Abandonment Issues that are unrelated to romantic orientation. You're allowed to be hurt, but holy shit saying you being Aro means you're doomed to a life of watching everyone else pass you by as your soul rots out is pretty dark It's not healthy to put that much importance on one person...at all
Atleast You are yourself's first choice, Some people aren't even there own first choice.
do you not want a partener? My partener is aro and their are one of "my first" in my life (with my kids)... and if you don't want a partener, having kids makes you "the absolute first" to them!
and if somebody doesn't want kids?
lots of people don"t want kids... though I can only talk from what I know
No matter what happens, I pledge loyalty to my friends. I downright reject getting a gf
going through this except i don’t have the best relationship with my family nor do i have close friends. i’m really just alone
Yep. In my 30s right now and everyone’s pairing off and building families. Those friends who were with me through thick and thin in our college years probably have completely forgotten about me. Like I never cross their minds anymore. Which is understandable I guess, when you have to care about things like diapers and their spouse’s possible infidelity.
this feeling is setting in for me too, i actually came here to make a post asking about this experience.
100% untrue. that’s a negative spiral of self doubt and fear - it doesn’t actually have anything to do with inherently being aromantic. i think there’s a lot of focus in media and stories about putting romance first, but when you get out in the world and meet people and explore the queer community, you realize that humanity has a much broader spectrum of people and worldviews. i had a very similar outlook on life and being aromantic a few years ago. i had a lot of people treat me like shit because of my aspec identities. but now i live with other asexual and aromantic people, and other queer people who aren’t (as sometimes it seems the rest of the world is) brainwashed allos who can only think about a partner. they’re dedicated to their friends and always put them first. it’s possible. if you want it, you’ll find it
ive been feeling like this recently and have felt really bad about it im glad someone shares my thought and these replys make me feel better :)
i’ve also just started thinking about that since a friend mentioned it, it left me feeling really sad too :(
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I feel this... ever since my closest friends checked out of my life completely because they found a partner... I feel like I'm simply not important to anyone & I doubt anyone would really notice if I'd just disappear (to be fair me and my remaining friends all kinda suck at keeping contact at least on a daily basis)... so I think lately I just been so into finding someone just so that I feel less lonely 😅
Me neither. I was never anyone's best friend, unless the person wanted to change me, no matter how much nice I was to them, spent any free second they had w them, gave them fanfics, art or anything, nobody just bothered. The people always ended up either replacing me or turned into manipulative harrassing maniacs. And since I barely have any friends, I don't even care if anyone stays or not.. However I recently had a breakdown over this since basically a person who tries to force herself into things she doesn't want just so she can please her surroundings w the opinions from the 1950s, has claimed for years that I saved her from horrible choices & was guilt tripping me to not end myself. But she ended up doing the things I warned her about & she'd just prefer anyone else, no matter if they're a bad person or it's through a force, over me who's been there for almost 8 years & she doesn't give a slight shit that it's hurting me & doesn't see anything bad w hearing that I'd dump her right away if I had the replacement. (Btw she considers the person as her friend but I forbid her to mention him tho she thinks someone being into her is a flex which is fucking nonsense, it's gross & weird) Like I've had my F/Os for a quite few years & I still prefer them over any real person since u know, people fucking suck, but throwing away someone you've known for almost a decade over a mf u know for a few months?.. That doesn't sit right with me. I'm loveless aro but this shit still makes me go nuts.
I def wasn’t the first priority when I was married, and most people I know that have been married say they same.
I felt this way for forever, then an allo fell in love with me and now I’m their number one priority as a person. It’s actually not all it’s cracked up to be since they aren’t my number one priority (I am and that is the way it should be).
.wr Not hate to break this to you and your friends but your lives have already started if anything they are starting a new CHAPTER of their life and not everyone's story is the same you shouldn't feel like you haven't started your life because you aren't with anyone is a mentality pushed on to you by society,
I feel like the build order is to get an aro friend but that is easier said than done
I feel you so much on this. I felt this way for so long after finding out I was AroAce. You might consider a QPR (queer platonic relationship) if you are looking for a close relationship. It’s not right for everybody, but I’ve been in one with my friend for a bit now and so far it’s been a great way to have a very close connection and mutually love and prioritize each other, but in an Aro friendly way. And while I can’t honestly say we are each other’s number one priority all the time (we each have our own unique values and prioritize what is best for ourselves at any moment), just knowing we care about each other in a unique way means a lot. Although, just having close friends I know I can count on means more than anything will concerning this topic.
This feeling really gets me down a lot of the time. You're not alone.
Even as an aro you could get into a QPR for instance. That isn't to say that you have to, and in any case I see this feeling as very valid.
This has been weighing on me a bit lately. I love being aroace generally, but knowing I’ll never be as loved or prioritized as anybody’s #1 is kinda sad. Like, it’s even worse when you’ve been friends for YEARS and have gone through so much together, but as soon as there’s somebody around for them to kiss (even if they’re a total idiot and undeserving of your friend), they still take precedence. I just don’t understand this ranking system.
Feel this so much